


Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (No Reservations)

by MadQueenShanny



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Abduction, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate timeline from the canon DBD game, Easter, F/M, Family Drama, Family Issues, Infidelity, Kidnapping, Lots of Mormonism in this one boys, Masturbation, Minor Character Death, Murder, Oral Sex, Past Abuse, Past Violence, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Small Towns, Suburbia, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 13:35:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29472576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadQueenShanny/pseuds/MadQueenShanny
Summary: "People say children from broken homes have it hard, but the children from charmed marriages have their own particular challenges." - Gillian FlynnDanny doesn't plan to ever return home. The Ghost Face doesn't need it. He doesn't need it. But one blackmailing message from his sister changes things.The stalking is sped up to kidnapping. The lies are laid out: fake it or they're dead. It's just one Easter weekend. Smile for me.He didn't expect his Baby to be such a good actress. He didn't expect it to be this hard to return to where it all started.He didn't expect to want it to be a battle, either. A desirous battle of many persons.But God does put his best warriors through the toughest trials, you know.
Relationships: Danny "Jed Olsen" Johnson | The Ghost Face/Original Female Character(s), Danny "Jed Olsen" Johnson | The Ghost Face/Reader
Comments: 3
Kudos: 34





	Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (No Reservations)

**Author's Note:**

> This was inspired by a prompt from the Dead by Baelight Discord Server revolving around Danny visiting his family with an abducted reader for a holiday dinner; I took the prompt and ran with it, and have added things, changed a bit and you're looking at what's to be a wild ride. I may even turn this into a series if the ending goes the way I'm planning it right now. Enjoy! More author notes at the bottom.

__

_Spring of 20XX_

He wonders if she’s angry because the duct tape around her wrists is too tight; he likes duct tape, that silky silver sheen, that stickiness that leaves marks and the sound it makes when it rips, but it’s a pain to tear in the heat of the moment when you’re trying to subdue someone. Knowing his luck, he tied it too tight and she’s upset about it. It might even leave bruises, which…while attractive…

“What’s wrong?” Danny asks her, as he slows the car down along the empty road; it’s sprinkling little rain drops on the early Saturday morning. His watch says it’s barely nine AM, the sun rising and peeking through the rain clouds to create an ambiance he’d appreciate more if he wasn’t so concerned about why he was getting glared at by his passenger.

And what a glare she has—she’s been glaring at him for the past thirty minutes. Just staring and glaring at him. 

Danny slows down the car then; they’re maybe about an hour from Orem. He could have taken them the quick, forty-minute-drive route from Salt Lake City to Orem, but he wanted to be discreet. He drove the two of them east, past Snyderville and east of the Twin Peaks, and now they’re doubling back around west, through campgrounds and dirt roads. No one’s out here and he prefers it that way. He doesn’t want any nosy expressway drivers peeking over and seeing his passenger sitting there with her wrists tied up on her lap; God forbid, she might even try to get their attention. 

Maybe. His Baby’s been awfully compliant and cautious. Up until the glaring started. 

“Come on, Sweetheart, what’s wrong? I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”

She sucks in a breath; her little nose twitches with annoyance and Danny wonders what she’s really looking at—his almost-black and a bit greasy hair hanging down his head? The dark circles under his eyes? The pale skin? She’s probably not used to him looking so unclean. He was a bit too anxious to really shower the other night.

Or is it—ah. That has to be it.

“Is it the cigarette? I can put it out, if it bothers you that much" and he smiles a clean smile then, the one he had used at the university with her, taking out the cig and leaning on the wheel to grin at her, slowing the car down even further. 

She finally speaks: “You disgust me.”

Danny laughs, a bark and “Wow” A pause then, “Says the woman who constantly discussed me back in Salt Lake City”

She huffs, “Which you?” and she’s clever. Quips a plenty. 

It’s why Danny decided to start stalking her four months ago. 

She’s a doctor, technically. Psychiatrist. A pretty thing that’s on the verge of petiteness with dark curls that are lighter than his, and nerdier glasses than the ones he wore back in Roseville. He is—was, he can’t see himself being able to keep the position now unless he's horribly lucky—a professor of journalism at the University of Utah with her. They’d met in person two times—the first time he had literally bumped into her in the Student Center as she was attending a casual meeting for a student’s dissertation. She had dropped the tea she’d ordered, Danny compensated her and then proceeded to watch her from a distance of about fifteen feet for the next three hours, sipping his own black coffee. He’d researched her afterwards, since she had sweetly given her name to him and vice versa. 

The second time, it was on purpose, a month after they had first met (though he had been watching her since): he stopped by her office on Valentine’s Day, the chilly Utah winter biting at his fingers as he walked into the Psychiatry academic building; he wanted to be cheeky, cute even, and he brought her a rose and winked and she flushed so prettily. He knew she had been in a meeting for two hours prior, and she probably needed a bathroom break as that was her habit that he knew of so well; his hypothesis had been correct and he took that time while she left him in her office alone to steal a glance at her cell phone—she should have been more cautious, he’d chide her gently about that one day—and write down her phone number. 

The Ghost Face called her for the first time that night, asking if she “liked the man that gave her that rose”. 

And so it went—Danny didn’t pay her any more visits, instead sticking to one of three options:  
One, complete voyeurism and watching with his camera from the car or at a distance on campus,  
Two, getting close enough to ask her a question or two as she walked by, checking up on her mental state (which was deteriorating—the calls were becoming more frequently, two, three times a week, if not more), and then leaving her to her business,  
Or, three, purely calling and taunting her. 

He had been planning to keep this up for a while; she was fascinating, some days becoming stronger, fighting off any sort of fear The Ghost Face might be causing in her; other days, she was nervous, jumping as she walked up the steps to her office, dropping papers as she entered her classes to teach. Danny began making guesses as to how she’d be some days, and reward himself with extra cigarettes or other treats when he was right. Hell, on days when he was very proud of his guesses, he’d take out the journal he had begun for her and read it for a few hours, pleasuring himself. 

It was becoming a thrilling obsession—up until he got that message on Facebook. 

Danny was not fond of Internet stalking; he found it tortuously boring and too easy. You could learn everything about someone with a few clicks these days. Facebook was full of stupid memes, Instagram had filters he found disgusting as a photojournalist, and Twitter had too many millennial children complaining about bullshit. 

But Facebook had something important to him: his sister Clara. 

Clara Eden Johnson, now Clara Eden Marshton. She had married two years ago, and was now pregnant. 

Danny blamed himself, though, for not just clicking away from when he first found his sister’s Facebook page. He had had a moment of weakness, sending a friend request and he had had two beers after he did it, despite Clara accepting and sending a tearful message about how she missed him, about how she was still in Orem, and both his parents were still alive. How she was happy with her husband Samuel. About how she was pregnant with a baby girl. 

_She’s the only good Johnson—maybe there’s hope for your family yet_ , a voice had told him. 

That was probably why he gave in to her second message: Clara was a powerhouse of plays, apparently; she had always been docile growing up, but something must have changed in her if she had the gumption to message him an ultimatum: visit the family for Easter Dinner, or she was deleting her Facebook profile. He would never hear from her again, because if he decided to not even try one last time, it was a clear sign he did not want to be a true part of their lives, despite moving back to Utah in the first place and being less than an hour away from them. 

Granted, the real reason he had moved to Salt Lake City was to be close enough to scare his family with murders done by The Ghost Face, and because Utah had not had his touch since he had left it years ago. That, and Roseville got nosy. They got suspicious and he had to go. But like he was going to tell Clara any of _that_. 

So he gave in, telling her fine, fine, I’ll come—but I’m bringing someone with me. 

If he was going to be forced to suffer on a Holy Day, God be damned, he was going to do it his way. 

Abducting his Baby had been easy enough and it felt like a culmination of the stalking that had been taking place; a dance of sorts that finally crashed into a crescendo; there was duct tape, a slash across her arm to stun her, and knocking her unconscious with the typical cloth (he was not a monster, he wasn’t going to hit her on the head or, God forbid, _bruise her too much_ ). 

And now here they were—her disgusted. He had taken off the mask in between her being unconscious and her waking up, and she had let out this tinny scream that made him sigh; he knew that she was probably shocked but also self-hating over the fact that her colleague in the English department was The Ghost Face, of all people. But whatever shock she had, whatever self-loathing she carried, she stored away and just tried to give him barbs. 

Even after explaining to her why she was here and what the consequences would be if she didn’t play along. 

“There’s only one of me, Baby. There always has been.” 

“I still find it hard to believe you’re the same Ghost Face from Florida” and Danny smiled at that response, stating,

“Find it hard to accept the fact that I’m the same man you debased in your classes with your students?”

He knew she had been discussing The Ghost Face’s crimes during her one Psychiatry of Crime course. She flushed with embarrassment at that line and turned away and Danny decided to be sincere and hold himself up to the word he gave her: he put out the cigarette in his old car’s ashtray. 

“Thank you” she whispered, and even held hostage, Baby was still polite and he smiled at that. 

“Of course, I don’t want you-”

“Your car stinks enough without your putrid cigarettes destroying my lungs.”

Danny’s quiet at that until he can’t help the dark chuckle that comes out of his mouth,

“You know, you could just sit back and enjoy the ride. I think this is going to be a great bonding opportunity for us. And you get a free meal out of the ordeal. And your parents get to live.”

“Bonding opportunity? How on Earth will me pretending to be your girlfriend of however-long create a bond between you and I?”

Danny shrugs and he decides to be an asshole and pull out another cigarette—she’s going to have to get used to him being a smoker, and considering he’ll get shamed when they’re finally in Orem for smoking, he might as well get in as many puffs as he can, putting the lit cigarette between his lips as he continues talking,

“You’ll get to see where I came from.”

She laughs then: “Oh, so you are one of those criminals with motherly issues?”

A grin, “No, Baby—It’s Daddy issues.”

She laughs again, “Of _course_ it’s your father. Let me guess: Mormon town, so Mormon father…pastor?”

He shakes his head: “Guess again.”

“Hmm…” She rests her head against the window pane, the rain finally picking up, the clouds a bit darker, “Doctor?”

“You’re good,” and she snorts at his response. “I mean it, you’re good. Smart like always.”

He really does find her smart—it’s one of the reasons she’s fascinating. 

“Worthy of being kidnapped, apparently” and Danny snickers at that. He finds it strange—somewhat—that she’s eerily calm in all of this. Maybe she’s just accepting the fact that she has no choice but to play along. Or she’s resigned to the fact that she’s here, and needs to be here, for the safety of others. 

Or maybe some part of her actually _likes this_. 

Of course, Danny brushes back his hair and opens his mouth and ruins it: “So, still disgusted by me?”

Her face falls then, as if she’s remembering where she really is. Who she is really with. 

“Yes” and the word drops like a stone and Danny slows the car down and he lets out a sigh.

“Well, then,” and as the car completely stops, he watches her tense up, and pale. There’s a slight shiver to her frame and that’s a delicious waft of fear emanating off her skin that he craves to lick right then and there. He leans in and he can smell the faint whiff of lavender that still presses to her skin; he’d abducted her right after she’d bathed for the night. 

He’s close enough to touch her arms, her chest, but all he does is lean over and unlock her passenger door. Then he unbuckles her seatbelt, fingers ghosting over her thighs that are still in pajama pants; he’s a gentleman though, and he packed extra clothes for her to change into before they get to his parents’ house. 

She stares, then, confused: “What are you doing?”

Danny shrugs, “You so badly want to go, you can go.”

“…I don’t follow.”

He sighs, “Well, now you disappoint me. You can go. If you’re that disgusted, go on.”

She’s staring at the lock like it’s holding a secret from her and he’s just thrilled to be watching her; it unnerves him when he’s watched so carefully by someone he thinks he understands completely, but knows he does not. 

“Granted,” He continues, “You don’t know where you are. And what are you going to do? Go to the police? Tell them The Ghost Face kidnapped you? Say it’s me when you have no proof? Call your parents and tell them to leave Florida because someone is after them?”

She is breathing a bit more firmly now, and he watches her breaths rise and fall as her brown eyes continue to stare at the door’s lock. 

But then Danny gets a surprise: she turns her wrists, grabs the door handle, and wrenches it open and slides out of the car wobbly and a bit off balance and begins to confidently stride down the road as the clouds darken and surely, it’s about to pour any moment. 

He blinks, mouth hanging open; he’s never been struck by someone like this, a woman—no, just any person—with the guts to hear all of that and hide their fear. Maybe she’s planning to combat all of that somehow—all of his plans. Maybe she’s daring and willing to just try. He can actually hear his heart stuttering as he slowly steps on the gas and moves the car to a crawl, closing the passenger door but pulling down the window. 

He pulls up beside her and she’s keeping her head high—despite the clouds finally bursting open and her blue pajamas start to get soaked and stick to her skin.

Danny has to shout over the din of the rain now, head leaning on the steering wheel as he cruises next to her as she marches on. The slippers he had carefully placed on her tiny feet are getting caked in muddy dirt as she just keeps walking and he watches her nearly stumble on a rock in the road, cursing. 

“Get back inside the car. You’re going to get a cold out here.”

“Is that something your mother told you? I’m fine,” she shouts back, and he rolls his eyes, 

“I’m giving you an opportunity here, you realize. An opportunity that does not result in you getting sick and your parents getting killed.” 

She whips her head around at that, a flare of rage that goes straight to his groin, “You don’t think I can stop you from hurting them?”

He lifts his head at that, “Baby, I know you could try. But I know you know you’d fail. But you’re still stubborn enough to try instead of just giving in to me because it’s the heroic woman in you. Which, disgustingly, I admire.”

She stops then and so does the car; she lifts her head to the sky and Danny watches her shake—and then she starts to laugh, 

“Why did you have to choose me?” her voice breaks across the rain and he notices there’s a tear or two flowing from her eyes, as the rain stains her glasses, as she lets out a hiccup and ah. There’s the break. After months of Ghost Face following her, there’s finally a full-fledged break. 

Danny has the urge to take his camera out and take a photograph of the moment; of her in the rain, of her brain screaming ‘he’s right, he’s right’, but he just watches instead. He’ll memorize it for eternity instead, he’ll see this visage when he dies, when they one day surely put him on death row, he’ll see her crying in his mind and love it forever. 

He just says calmly: “Because I have no reservations about how perfect you are.”

She wheezes then and hangs her head; she knows there’s no way out of this: she could walk down this road, and either get lost and doubled back up near Twin Peaks, or make it to Orem and…what? Say what? Do what?

But, she’s also still stubborn to the end. His Baby stands there, and refuses to move. She just goes back to glaring. 

Her freezing causes something in Danny to snap and he growls, opening the door and his anger comes out as he stomps over to her and grabs her and shoves her into the car and slamming the door on her, nearly hitting her arm. 

He’s drenched just from those few brief seconds, barely a minute or two, out in the rain, black shirt pressed to his skin as he slides back in and he reaches around behind his seat to grab a ratty beige towel and he throws it at her unkindly. 

“Dry off. Before you stain the seats.”

She takes the towel but he hears a calm sentence: “Fuck your car seats.”

Danny’s taken a second towel that does indeed have blood stains—hers does not, see, he’s still being a gentleman—and he pauses to glare at her. He does hate his car; she’s right, it does smell, it’s an early 2000’s station wagon the color of merlot wine, but it is his and he’s keeping the heat on higher for her sake, so she should finally stop being stubborn and shut up. 

He tells her as much, and his Baby sinks against the seat, finally compliant again, and no longer glaring. 

It’s not much longer until he’s home, and he would rather have time to collect his thoughts in a good manner. 

But it’s difficult; his own brown eyes keep moving over to her as she watches the trees go by outside the car window, as they move back into the civilized part of the state; there’s a smile on her face she tries to hide as they pass an old-fashioned and cute ice cream stand on the edge of Orem; a smile that is still there as the sun starts coming out and she seems to relax. 

He hopes she’ll continue this sweetness. His mother would adore it, his father might just tolerate him because of it. And besides, it’s only going to be three days, and two nights—he can do this. He can suffer through Easter, keep up a brotherly relationship with his sister, bond with his Sweetheart. 

He’s handled worse. He handled Roseville. He handled Philly. 

He can do _one damn dinner_.

\--------

Of course, the sun comes out when they get into Orem proper. It’s so cheesy and ridiculous, Danny wants to advertise it on some touristy billboard: Come to Orem! We’re so full of piss and vinegar and sunshine, we scare away the rain! 

The town has not changed in the eighteen years he’s been away—and that’s both horrifying and sad. He’s thirty-six now, and the town still screams Suburbanite Central, with its perfect manicured lawns, the shops and storefronts still small but now with just a twinge of modern technology to them. They’re still very much the same: clean windows, plants along the sidewalk to add some color, and the Temple in town still hasn’t been overtly desecrated or doomed, or been struck down by lightning, all of which disappoints Danny. They won’t have to attend church there on Sunday, thank God; he hated his family’s church of Saint Francis for a lot of reasons, but at least it is not gaudy like the Temple is.

“Your hometown is…” Baby trails off as they stop at a red light and he’s curious of her assessment; he’s not disappointed when she goes “Quaint” because it gives him a chance to laugh and respond,

“That’s putting it mildly. It’s no Salt Lake, that’s for sure.”

“Was it too small for you?” She asks as he starts up the drive again; they’ve got about another ten minutes until they get to his house, but maybe he’ll “accidentally get lost” and make it an even twenty. 

“Small. Suffocating. Pick an adjective.”

“You’re the English professor—you should be able to describe it just fine.”

He shrugs, “Too religious. Too…persecutory.”

“Oh, I like that one. Makes your hometown sound downright diabolical, like it tortured your very soul.” Danny catches her rolling her eyes at the end of that statement and he snorts; since when did his life turn into some dark romantic comedy where the woman he kidnaps teases him? He doesn’t understand. 

Maybe it’s a coping mechanism. He can’t think of any other explanation for her calmness and humor right now. 

“You don’t understand—you didn’t grow up Mormon.”

“No, but I grew up Catholic. We’re not so different in that aspect, you realize. The Catholics can be just as hard on people that don’t want to follow a set of standards, which you clearly didn’t. The only question is, what kind of standards?”

Danny pauses at that, deciding to indeed take the longer route, turning right instead of left. What is the harm in telling her? She might as well understand the background of why he has been so hesitant to come here. 

“…My parents didn’t want me to go to journalism school. They didn’t think it was a proper profession for a ‘good Mormon boy’.”

“…You mentioned your father was a doctor before. I bet he wanted you to be one like him, didn’t he?” She responds and he nods, 

“Bingo. My father also has sway here; he’s donated a lot of money over the years to both our church and Brigham Young University—that was where they wanted to send me. I pretty much had a place saved for me upon graduation.” A beat of a pause, “And I didn’t want it.”

She snorts then, “Of course you didn’t. What did you do, though, instead of sucking it up and going?”

Danny smirks then, taking another turn and heading into more neighborhood territory—houses start appearing, the streets have fewer stores and more homes:

“I decided to keep my plans a secret. I had applied for Syracuse University and planned on leaving my home on a pre-planned date, acting as if I was going to Brigham Young. Turns out, my plans ended up being found out.” Baby looks at him with concern then, and he pauses again for dramatic effect, but it just annoys her by the ‘get on with it’ head tilt she gives him, “I had been writing down plans in a journal I kept on me at all times. School was out by then, I had a few more weeks until I was free. No one else knew, but I came home one night in July and my father had found out what I had been planning--and he beat the ever living shit out of me.”

“…Really?”

“I’m a liar, Baby, but even I don’t lie about abuse. What kind of person do you take me for?”

She huffs: “Well, what did you do then?”

“I had to leave. I packed what I had, and left my house at eighteen. It was only a few weeks until my freshman year was to begin, so I got in my car—which was mine, by the way, I had been working in high school for the local paper as a paid intern, it was one of the things that got me into Syracuse—and drove to New York, made up a sob story to the Residence Life office in Syracuse about how I needed a place to stay now because my family was suffering through something ‘tragic’ and I couldn’t stay with them, and they bought it hook, line, and sinker. Got me into my dormitory a few weeks early.”

She narrows her eyes then: “Alright, I’ll bite: how did your father let you get away with being an intern and, knowing you, you figured out how your father found out—what’s that story?”

Danny unleashes a grin then because he’s proud of that one.

“Well, to answer your first question,” He drolls, pulling up at a stop sign—they’re fairly close to the house now, “My father figured it would just be a passing fancy and I’d move on. As for the second question…I got invited back to Utah when I was twenty-five. An old high school…acquaintance of mine kept in touch with my sister. She wanted to invite me to his wedding taking place in Salt Lake City. It was more of a peace offering; the guy was a prick and I hated him, but Clara was friends with his sister and the new bride. So I went as my sister's wedding guest. At the end of the wedding, he told me he had been the one to tell my parents. He had apparently been at a coffee shop I’d been at one day, snooped around my journal I had left on the table, and ran to my father to confess what he knew. He told me it was because I apparently came off egotistical about the whole thing—about how I acted as if I was ‘too good for Brigham Young’” and Danny barks out a laugh at that, a laugh that startles her, and he smiles, “Really, me? Egotistical? He was ridiculous.”

A pall settles over the car and his Sweetheart asks: “…What was his name?”

Danny knows what she’s thinking: he gives it to her and he sighs, stopping the car. He knows what she wants to do, so he’ll help her: he digs into the back seat of the car, grabs the bag of items he stole from his Baby’s apartment, and pulls out her cell phone. He types the name in the search bar of the web browser app and slides the phone into her bound hands, fingers still free enough to move the screen, and Danny watches her face turn ashen, eyes widen and:

“You gutted him the night he was supposed to leave for his honeymoon.”

“Mmm…My very first one,” and Danny’s sigh is wistful as she stares at the photos: a pretty golden boy’s memorial page with his age listed below. If she dug deeper, she’d be able to find the crime scene photos from Youtube videos and documentaries, but Danny knows she’s not brave enough for that territory right now. “You know, he put up a damn good fight too—it’s how I got the scar here” and he gestures to the little scar above his lips; it was a sloppy kill, he admits it. Blood everywhere, his old mask getting stained and stretched, but it worked. It was done, and “No one suspected a thing since no one saw me talking to him that night—he had pulled me away so we were alone. I was never even questioned, but the police here rarely know what they’re doing anyway. Regardless, I finished up in Salt Lake, said good bye to my sister…did a few more murders along the way, and went back to New York. Went quiet for a while until I felt like starting up again. But I never came back here after that time. And when I was here for the wedding, I didn't even bother visiting Orem.”

Baby’s silent then—not a word as she turns her phone over and sits it in her lap and he has to whisper then:

“You’re remembering who you’re in this car with, aren’t you?”

Silence then. She closes her eyes and a breath escapes her plush, pink lips and Danny has the briefest flash of blood spewing from them as he stabs her in the back, kissing her before she falls to the ground, his brain creating spontaneous masterpieces once again. 

“Let’s just get this over with,” She finally whispers and it’s perfect timing—the house rolls up and it too hasn’t changed. A two-story stony beige house with cobblestone trim, crested upon a little hill, and Danny has to turn the car up into a driveway. They stop the car and he glances up at the monolith; his mother’s curtains are yellow right now, bordering the windows. There are tiny buds of flowers—violets? Marigolds? His mother always liked both—sprouting up with the early spring weather. There’s a gray car in the driveway ahead of him and it has to be his father’s: a gray Ford…something or other. There’s no black car that he remembers his father having from before. And there’s a bright blue one in front of the house that must be Clara’s, she has to already be here and inside like she promised she would be. 

Danny turns off the engine, and the seat belt comes off, and so does the knife, as he reaches for his pants and pulls the one out of the sheath that he hadn’t taken off since they started their drive; roughly, he yanks his girl’s hands over and cuts the tape off and points the knife at her with a smile, saying,

“I still think we’re going to have a grand old time. I’ll put this away once we’re inside, but until then? Don’t try to scream. Don’t try to run. We’re going to portray this perfectly. Clear? Or I’ll be taking a road trip back to that little town outside Miami your parents retired to.”

The threat works because she shivers again, and finally, finally, another noise of fear escapes her, like it had when he had abducted her. As much as he loves her witty remarks, the fear is what satiates him the most. 

His hands make the knife disappear, and he leaves the car and goes to open the door for her, taking her arm like the prince from Cinderella; they walk up the smooth pathway and underneath the stone arch to the front door, which is a beautiful bronze color with a golden knocker. Potted paints sit next to the doorway and Danny notices little tiny cherubs sit in the pots and he vaguely wonders if Clara got them for his mother. 

Baby is shivering as Danny knocks with his left hand and he can’t have that—he removes his right arm from hers, reaches into his back pocket, and leans in to whisper in her ear, breath ghosting over the shell,

“Smile, Baby. I bet they’re dying to meet you”

And she feels the press of a knife into the small of her back just as Clara opens the door. 

\------

Danny isn’t always one to appreciate beautiful moments, but as he sits here now on the couch as Clara talks to his Sweetheart, he has to admit, he’s appreciating how well things are going so far for them and how beautiful the whole scene is despite some annoyances. Clara, true to her word, was there to greet them at the door and she nearly broke down, the poor thing, at seeing him after so long; glowing in radiance (he can’t believe the statement about pregnant women glowing is _true_ , of all things), she hugged him tightly and the knife had disappeared again so she could receive one in return. And then she was stunned by Baby—by how Danny apparently ‘found someone’ after all this time. 

She had escorted them in and his mother was next and what a sight of sameness she was: still tall, still radiant with blond curls that Danny didn’t have anywhere in his genetics, he refused to believe it, still skinny with a pointed nose and light blue eyes and still the perfect picture of the Mormon housewife. LeAnn Marie Johnson had not changed in nearly two decades; her voice was still a high-pitched lit that grated on Danny’s nerves and he had hated it as he grew older; her shrill disappointment in his choices followed him everywhere he went, and he’d be damned if he admitted it and made Baby’s statement of “motherly issues” ring true. 

He had issues with his mother, but not _'motherly issues’_.

Issues mostly being her hypocrisy; Mormons never drank, not even tea or coffee, never smoked, and yet he will never forget how he and Clara discovered his mother’s secret stash of vodka in the hallway closet when they were kids. He’ll never forget how he did detective-work and figured out she was having an affair with Lou, the neighbor from down the road. He wonders if his father ever found out. He wonders if it’s still going on. 

Sure, his father was—is—dictatorial. He raised them with an iron fist, that Patrick Abraham Johnson. Danny can feel his silvery-blue eyes on him (vaguely, Danny again wonders where he got his dark brown eyes—no one has ever told him) as he sits on one couch next to Baby, who is between him and Clara, and Patrick sits on a living room chair across from him. He steals glances and he realizes the only thing about his father that’s changed is his hair color; less black, more gray now, and he still reads that same damn newspaper and Danny feels a stirring of hatred then, because he can read the paper, but his son can’t write for it? If only he knew he was Jed, if only he knew he was famous in Roseville, if only-

His brain comes to a screeching halt when Baby puts a hand on his knee and says, “And that’s how Danny and I met” and he whips his head around, having spaced out through that entire conversation; what? How did they meet? What did she say? Shit, he figured he’d be the one to tell that story, so Baby would not have the chance to lie-

“How sweet!” Clara sighs, pulling back her long, auburn hair and tying it into a ponytail; she moves gracefully despite the swell of her seven-months-pregnant belly and Danny tries and fails to not look utterly stupid as he glances at his girl and she goes,

“I was telling them about how we met at the University of Utah; remember? You caught me when I fell down the stairs at the Student Center?”

Well, that’s…not true. At all. Considering he in actuality all but rammed her into the edge of the espresso bar there, but alright. If she wants to lie and make him a hero, he won’t say no. 

“And remember how you asked me out to dinner after and I was so touched I said yes?”

Again, not true, but she smiles at him and he returns the grin with a nod and that is…actually cute. Probably something Jed would do, really.

“And remember,” She pauses to giggle here and his father looks over, “Remember how we ran into your friend Jake, and he kept calling you Jed and told me your whole name, and I picked up the bad habit, and now I can’t stop calling you Jed sometimes?”

Well fuck. Now that’s just a thorn in his side and from the way she squeezed his knee just now, she planned it. She knows who Jed Olson really is, she’s been talking about The Ghost Face to her students and how Jed Olson has been at large, so now, of all times, she is going to throw it back in his face, and considering they _just talked with his father about this_ , she’s doing it as revenge. 

“I know Danny told you he legally changed his name from ‘Daniel Jedidiah Johnson’ to just ‘Danny Johnson’, but I just can’t help but love that middle name!” she says then, turning to Patrick who quirks an eyebrow and almost looks at her _approvingly_ , Dear God, what is happening, Danny needs to say something-

But then his mother enters with a pitcher of lemonade and a few bowls of fruit and the conversation turns to that, and Danny can only just try to smile at his father; great. Perfect. It was already awkward enough when he had shaken his father’s hand again upon entering the room and muttered ‘It’s just Danny now, I changed it, no more Jedidiah either’ and he feared his father was going to punch him in the face again, but now it’s even worse, because Baby is holding onto his arm and complimenting his mother’s perfect amount of sugar in the lemonade and he’s starting to suspect this was a very bad idea. 

They go over the schedule for the rest of the day; Baby says she’s tired, and hoping to rest and Clara agrees—they’ve had a busy week at the University, surely, they should just take some time off today and relax. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday anyway, they have to get up early for church in the morning, and then dinner in the early afternoon and maybe Danny can take her out on the town tomorrow night, give her a tour of Orem to show her where he really grew up. His mother thinks this is all a fine idea, but she also takes the time to lay down some ground rules: she understands Baby and Danny are ‘together’ but since they are not married, in this house, no sleeping together. She’ll take the guest room. Danny has his old room, Clara hers. Keep things clean, as some of the neighbors may stop by to drop off Easter gifts such as casseroles and tarts, as it is a neighborly tradition to share such things on a Holy Day. Danny isn’t allowed to smoke (he figured) or drink (again, figured), and she reminds him of such because she can smell the “putrid stench of cigarettes on him” (No wonder LeAnn likes his Baby, they both use the word putrid way too much for Danny’s liking). 

They sit and chatter for a few hours then: his father mostly quiet, turning on the television and focusing on Clara—she was always his favorite. His mother talks to Baby and asks her about her schooling, where she’s from, her family, and she even pulls out her phone to show them pictures. She goes on to describe some of her classes and research and Danny actually enjoys that—she mentions The Ghost Face and his mother downright pales,

“Barbaric monster. Killing those poor men and women. Stalking them.” LeAnn takes a sip from her glass and his girl nods,

“It’s so tragic. My students and I have been discussing him and I think he has a lot of complexes.”

Danny nearly chokes on his lemonade. God damn, alright. Way to just throw him under the bus! He’s complex, he doesn’t have _complexes_ , but his mother nods vigorously,

“Exactly! I bet that ruthless murderer wasn’t loved enough as a child. This is why there needs to be better parenting handbooks out in today’s society. We need to improve our churches, our institutions, and not let everyone just go all willy-nilly with raising children," and Danny has to close his eyes at the irony. And the stupidity. 

He steals a glance at his girl then: he should have known this wasn’t going to be just her being docile; she’s a psychiatrist. She knows the mind and she’s apparently good enough at lying to get his parents hooked. This is how she’ll try to take control in this game and he has to follow along. He can’t risk snapping and, what, killing her? His parents would have him arrested, and it’d be game over. Even if he tries to make her ‘disappear’, he would be the number one suspect. There’s no question. No, he has to play along. No murder right now. Not of her, at least. 

And it’s not because he’s enjoying seeing her be cunning; it’s not that at all. It’s just necessary for his survival. 

The talking continues through the late morning into the early afternoon and Danny feels boredom creeping in; he watches the television a bit, glances at Baby, and his mother suggests they get out old board games like they used to do as children. His parents were never very exciting but unlike Danny, Clara doesn’t seem to mind. He watches her get up and go to a shelf with his mother and he wonders how Clara handles it; her husband isn’t here right now, traveling for the Easter weekend—something he noted his father did _not_ approve of, but what could he say? She married someone well off in the church community who does a lot of charitable work and she’s pregnant, the family line will live on and hopefully continue to not be disappointing since, well, it’s _Clara_ —and she’s carrying literal burdens in her body. Danny has pondered taking a wife before as Jed to keep up appearances but…he doubts he could handle it. The lies he would have to tell to her, the movements he would have to do, the—

Baby gets up then and volunteers to take the empty lemonade tray and fruit bowls back to the kitchen for his mother, and she calls to him,

“Jed, sweetie, can you help me?”

And that’s when his brain does two things: he commits to the plan he just created, and he also once again snaps at the same time, snapping like his head does as she calls his name from the doorway, the whiplash gargantuan. 

Danny follows without a word and as she puts the tray down, his hands--so much bigger than hers, he wish he had more time to admire it--moves, takes hers, and drags her down the hall to the tiny bathroom outside the pristine porcelain kitchen; she lets out a ‘HEY!’ but keeps quiet overall as he slams the bathroom door and they’re stuck in what’s literally a tiny water closet big enough for one person; it’s only a toilet surrounded by pink wall paper, cute little bottles of perfume on shelves above white towels that would be bad for cleaning up bloodstains, a gaudy, gilded mirror with gold edges that screams ‘I’m from a Temple of Sodom, please strike me down and/or bury me in a dumpster’, and the sink which he presses her against.

“Stop that. Just, just stop it!” He doesn’t like that he’s losing his cool over this, but damn it, this is his game to play and win and he hates that she just looks at him with sauciness in her eyes, her arms crossing and,

“Stop what?”

“You know damn well what. I’m Danny, not…not Jed!”

“I don’t know…That middle name says otherwise. As does your alias,” and she tilts her head almost maniacally with furrowed brows, and Danny’s both turned on and pissed off. She’s goading him; goading him with shit from his past and he doesn’t like it. He is The Ghost Face, she should be subdued like a mouse in a trap and yet she’s going out swinging and this wasn’t what he figured for her at all. Was he wrong about her? Those predictions he did from all the stalking? Or is it the environment? Is it because she knows who he is, and she’s unafraid of the false Ghost that is out in the light? Is it because there’s now a face to the voice and she has nothing to fear? Is it because she assumes he won’t kill her now? Does she not care that he could still kill her later? 

Because he could…right?

He pushes her against the sink again, a bit more forcefully and his voice goes lower—a growl, deeper, more akin to The Ghost Face one from the voice modifier he uses on the calls, 

“It’s. Danny. I don’t want to hear you say any other name for me until after we leave Monday morning, or there will be consequences.”

She winces at his fingers pressing her sides against the sink but her face doesn’t change into meekness; it more morphs into a glare and damn, what’s wrong with him? This wasn’t supposed to turn into something thrilling for him. There’s shakes in his body now, little tremors that tease him with the idea that he likes this more than he should. He’s torn between slamming her head into the sink and watching it stain red, and kissing her and he doesn’t understand why—has he been ignoring some…form of latent attraction for the past few months? Well. Not necessarily ignoring, he distinctly remembers jacking off to pictures of her, he won’t deny he’s felt attraction, but this…is _different_. But he doesn’t have another word for it yet. 

“Fine,” Baby whispers eventually, staring up at him and he gives her side another squeeze, and is about to let go when she goes, “I’ll call you whatever I want once we’re out of here.”

“Oh, will you?” He leans in then, head tilting and it’s a threat—his question and her statement.

“Mm. I’ll call you Jed Olson.”

“Oh? And what else?” Danny breathes then, and he knows he’s in her space even further now, noses almost touching, his groin pressing up to her front and his eyes have to look wild. She’s about a head shorter than him too, he’s crowding her and he wants to. 

“Danny Johnson. The Ghost Face. I’ll call you murderer, and everyone will know what you are.”

He can’t help it then—he grins, and his lips are close to hers and, “Baby. They already know what I really am. Even my parents do. They might not know my name, but they know _what I am_. Nothing you say will surprise them, or anyone. And it won’t matter in the end, will it?”

She’s silent, then, staring at him, and he smells her again—her lavender scent is fading and it’s tragic. He’s glad he brought that body wash from her apartment bathroom, and tucked it into the bag with her clothes. She already knows it’s there, they had changed just before they got into town, and he stares down at her now; she’d chosen one of the skirts-and-leggings-ensembles he had haphazardly grabbed while she was out cold and it looks a little too bright: purple skirt with red flowers, black leggings and top but he stares nonetheless. 

There’s only their breathing for a minute and he could do anything he wanted in this liminal space. He could destroy her. Annihilate her. 

And she surely would find a way to take him with her.

It’s all broken though when they hear a “Danny?” and Baby's real name being called and Danny jumps back—Clara’s looking for them and his Sweetheart’s eyes go wide. It looks inappropriate, the two of them in here. It’ll cause more gossip and disappointment and who knows what else, even if it’s only Clara that finds them, his parents will assume-

And he watches then as Baby acts fast: she must know what he’s thinking; that it’ll look like either some sexual provocative encounter or a domestic dispute, neither of which are good for the plan and she digs in the tiny drawers below the bathroom sink and she smiles when she pulls out a nail file. For a split second, Danny contemplates that he’s about to get stabbed and wow, what a way for The Ghost Face to go out: stabbed by nail file by his fake girlfriend. It’s not how he’d pictured going out but-

She glances at it a moment and tosses it aside and then goes ‘Aha!’ and pulls out a bottle of red nail polish, bright like blood, and she dumps it out onto her left hand and Danny stares in utter confusion; she’s surely snapped. Great. 

But then Baby gives him a look like he’s an utter idiot and she takes the bottle, and splashes the remnants on one of the white towels and the long sleeve black shirt he’d put on, tosses the towel into his barely-working arms, and throws the bottle in the tiny trash can next to the toilet, grabbing his arm just in time as Clara opens the door. 

“Ah, Clara! S-Sorry, I cut myself in the kitchen when I picked up a knife and Danny and I had to rush in here to stop the bleeding.”

Clara gasps and nearly stumbles into the bathroom, squawking out questions: is it deep?! Do we need to take you to the hospital!? She’s always been a worrywart and that hasn’t changed. His Baby says no, no, it’s one of those cuts that bleeds a lot, it’s fine, not too deep, just scary, and Danny’s too dumbstruck to say anything otherwise and just tries to look as if he's squeezing her small hand to stop blood. Her small, small hand that's smooth due to milky hand cream she uses every night. 

And Clara’s apparently too addled with pregnancy hormones to smell the ungodly smell of nail polish through the entire bathroom. 

Regardless, she lets his parents know the situation and leaves, and Baby dunks her hand into the sink, washing off as much nail polish as possible. She even has to pull out the bottle of acetone to clean up the job even more so and Danny stares, holding a stained towel and standing there like an idiot, and in between the confusion, he gets a little joy out of the fact that his mother is going to have a conniption about the towel later, even if it was for a ‘good cause’. 

“What. What was that?” he stutters--actually _stutters_ out, but his girl says nothing, staring at him over her shoulder, and once again Danny realizes he’s playing a two-player game, and he might actually lose by the end of this. 

She continues to say nothing, cleaning up and telling him, “Put that towel away for your mother. I think she’d appreciate it.” And she leaves him alone in the bathroom. 

The rest of Saturday is uneventful for him then: he’s too shocked at how she actually put in effort to keep his reputation positive, or neutral at best, to say much. Their Saturday dinner is charming; his mother made roasted chicken, his father talks about how Orem General is hiring new patients, some good doctors that he’s proud to work with (was that a jab at Danny’s failed status as a medical expert? Probably). Baby glances at him across the table, the chandelier’s light bouncing off her brown bob and he’s struck with the idea that he’s at the dinner table with both angels and devils judging him and he doesn’t know what else to do other than cut his chicken, and watch her in return. 

They clean up the vegetables, the water, and the meat and eventually part ways for the night. His parents and Clara retire early, and he showers mostly in peace where he can contemplate everything and battle with his stomach that is aflame with a type of kindling he didn’t mean to put in it, something that she did when she sprung into action, when she opened her mouth and told him this was war, and as he touches himself, he remembers how he used to wonder if his house was an actual House of God, and if it was a sin back then to masturbate just as it is now. 

He doesn’t see her before he goes to bed until he opens the guest bedroom—the lock was faulty, as he’ll tell her in the morning when he whispers that he watched her sleep for a few minutes, admiring how the moonlight came through those ugly yellow curtains in the darkened room. She’s out, probably tired, probably traumatized, and he smiles. She’s perfectly situated right where he wants her, when she’s like this. Vulnerable but safe, perfectly preserved in his little family abode. Like in amber. 

He wants to keep her like this. 

Danny knows he probably won’t sleep well that night and normally he wouldn’t care, but tomorrow. Tomorrow’s the main show. He wants to try to sleep. Church is one thing, dinner will be another, and knowing his luck, more things are going to happen. 

_One more damn dinner, one holiday dinner, you can do this_. He tries to tell himself, almost in a prayer to himself. 

Too bad Danny was never good at praying.

END OF CHAPTER I

**Author's Note:**

> Wow, it's great to be out of fanfic writing retirement. I haven't written/published anything in...maybe ten years? I was LightofaThousandSuns on fanfic.net so if any of you remember me from that time, well, welcome back! I'll be continuing this over the next few weeks, and I'm hoping to also publish my other Danny-centric story in the near future as well. It's a joy to write his character, and the darkness that surrounds this fandom and the themes. 
> 
> Some notes: Orem is a real Mormon-centric town in Utah, as are the places Danny and Reader drove through. Danny's childhood home is based on others from that area, and real life locations will be used where appropriate. I'm also not personally Mormon, but appropriate research will be conducted as much as possible to keep the story accurate. There will be violence to a point and sex in this story because, of course, it's Danny.
> 
> You may find me on Twitter at @queen_shannan and you can join our Baelight server at https://discord.gg/ENa4ZQUp 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed everything so far! Feel free to reach out and thanks for reading!


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